Page images
PDF
EPUB

that this path is open to those who have not had all the advantages of extensive and liberal culture. We have already named Patrick Henry, who, perhaps, stands at the head of American orators; yet he passed almost instantly from an uncouth, lubberly lounger to a very powerful speaker; apparently little more than an animal one day, thrilling and astounding men by the wonders of his eloquence the next. Henry Clay and Mr. Pinckney, two pre-eminently distinguished Southern orators, each without early advantages, were prepared and disciplined for their work by no liberal or university course. Roger Sherman went from the shoemaker's bench to be the Nestor of our congress. John Marshall, our greatest lawyer, whose eloquence, though chiefly that of thought and argument, was still so effective, had rather the soldier's than the scholar's education; his was the drilling of the camp, not of the college. There was discipline in all these men; and there may be, with God's blessing, in any man who shall strongly will it. It is indispensable that the mind be disciplined and prepared in some way for this work. We insist upon no particular way; only let there be attained the faculty of method and the fountain of feeling, a mind clear and strong joined with a living soul of fire. These together will make out the thing. Where these are, it will come out, and you cannot stop it. The soul of fire and the baptism of fire will impart and impel the tongues of fire; and these will fling forth mingled strains of reasoning and appeal, effective where they fall. Let the speaker's logic only now and then break into flame, so that the argument shall go out in a melted, glowing stream, sparkling as it is poured, and it will make, yea, will melt, its way to the auditor's heart. In this fervid condition of the speaker, if there be any power in him, it will come out in his speech. If nothing else, there will be force in what he says; and this is eloquence. Perhaps the best definition that has ever been given is this: "Eloquence is force." There are those, indeed, who do not like this definition; nor do they always like the thing, if it comes to them in this assailing and

entering shape. We hear it maintained and insisted on in many quarters that the smooth and nicely-finished, finelybalanced things, the brilliant corruscations of the imagination, the beautiful and blooming flowers of the fancy, the gorgeous and towering structures of language, language in shining heaps- these and such like these, and nothing else, make out the true eloquence. They so make the people stare and admire and praise. It is so charming and so beautiful! If this be eloquence in its true form and spirit, then the dandies and the peacocks have it. The great masters of the past and present have it not. They never aimed at this mere finery. They struck for the achieving quality, the soul-bracing, the drastic element; for they wished and they meant to accomplish something — make those they spoke to believe, resolve, and do something.

You doubtless have often witnessed how the purpose of the speaker, the frame he is in, modifies everything that comes from him. We put ourselves before one man. He is in the light, entertaining mood, and we meet a beautiful exhibition; the person, manner, voice, style, all fine. There are admirable sketchings, great and vivid pictures drawn upon the wall; the sensibilities are stirred, and all love to feel, and it is a delightful entertainment. We go away, and soon forget all about it. It fades from our mind as the tinted bow fades from the eastern sky. We place ourselves before another man. He does not greatly excite our astonishment; but we find ourselves within the circle of his power. He moves us deeply, and we see definitely why we are moved. He implants within us some vital sentiments which we cannot dislodge, and sends us away thinking, feeling, resolving. We sleep, we wake, and the truth is within us, and the pressure is upon us, and we find no relief from the impulse which has visited us but in generous, decisive action. There is force here, not prettiness, not something which tickles the fancy or plays round the head; but something which touches and stretches and works the very muscles. Like the kingdom of God, it is not in word, but in power.

The evidence of its presence is not a sigh, nor a tear, nor a smile, but conviction, decision, achievement. This is eloquence, authenticated as such by the great performers who have gone before us. And who does not feel that it is an admirable power? And who does not sometimes wish he had it? Perhaps you may have it. But, remember, it will cost you something. Remember the discipline we have alluded to, and which all transcendent speakers in this line have had to come to. Let him whose heart pants for this distinction gird himself to the labor, the conflict, the persistent self-drill. Let him know what he professes to know, and see, as with an eagle's vision, what he undertakes to see. Let him study language till he shall understand its analogies and its nice shades and pregnant meanings; especially, till he can call out the sweet harmony, the picturesque force, and the Saxon stringency of his mother tongue. Let him in his reading dwell in a pure, bracing atmosphere; never, no, not for an hour, in a region of mingled mist and moonshine. Let him walk, rather, with the men, the former giants of our literature get upon the mountains their shoulders make. In all the studies and problems he meets, let him meet them like a man; show the mastering mind—one that can grapple with difficulties and conquer obstructions and move straight through the most entangling intricacies, till he comes to brush them aside as though they were cobwebs. Thus let there be reached the two contrasted powers of comprehension and concentration, and also the power of a firmly-linked consecutiveness to be the sinew of his discourse. And then let him have a correct, wholesome taste and stored imagination, that he may clothe the process everywhere with comeliness, and now and then with lines and tints of beauty. And when he has gained these varied gifts, let him remember his responsibility to God and his generation; and use them in the advocacy of the true and the right, the pure and the good; expending them generously in the toils of philanthropy and the deeper solicitudes of religion, till this now burdened world shall come to the period of its redemption.

ARTICLE III.

REVELATION AND INSPIRATION.

BY REV. E. P. BARROWS, D.D., LATELY PROFESSOR OF HEBREW LITERATURE IN ANDOVER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.

No. IX.

INSPIRATION CONSIDERED IN ITS END.

WE propose, in the present Number, to consider the inspiration of the record with reference to its end, leaving out of view, as far as possible, all questions concerning its mode. The inspiration of the record can have in view no other end than that of giving to men, under the sanction of divine authority, a sure rule of faith and practice. Since any divinely authorized rule of faith and practice must have the two attributes of infallibility and sufficiency, the proposition that the books of scripture are inspired includes the two ideas that they are without error, and that they are sufficient for our salvation. It is manifest that each inspired book, taken separately, must be without error; but when we come to the quality of sufficiency, that belongs not so much to single books, as to the whole considered collectively. It was not the divine plan to reveal all truth at once. He communicated it, as occasion required, "in many parts and in many ways," using to this end the many and diverse gifts of his servants, till, at last, when the record had attained to all needful fulness, the canon of scripture was closed. It is of this record that we affirm infallibility and sufficiency; both qualities being included in its divine authority, which we now proceed to consider.

[ocr errors]

Here we begin with the great fundamental truth that Jesus of Nazareth was, in the fullest sense of the words, an infallible teacher. We do not assume the infallibility of the

1 πολυμερῶς καὶ πολυτρόπως. Heb. i. 1.

record to prove the infallibility of the Saviour. We take the gospel narratives simply as written by honest and competent men, and as worthy of credence in the ordinary acceptation of the words; and we affirm that the numerous declarations recorded by them which fell from the Saviour's own lips show that he was a teacher raised above all error. He claimed for himself the attribute of infallibility in so many ways, that we must receive as an axiom of Christianity that what he taught was pure truth, without any admixture of falsehood. It was not the declaration of the beloved disciple alone, that before his incarnation he dwelt from eternity in the Father's bosom.1 He himself said: "Father, glorify thou me with thine own self,2 with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." 3 "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go to the Father."4 And, during that eternal residence in the Father's bosom he knew all his counsels. This he asserts of himself in the most explicit terms: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself,5 but what he seeth the Father do; for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth." The mode of representation is drawn from human intercourse; but the truth taught is that the Son has a full knowledge of all the Father's counsels. Accordingly, the Saviour elsewhere says, with the confidence of one who knows what he affirms: "He that sent me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him"; "I have not spoken of myself; but the Father who sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say 1 John i. 1, 2, 18.

2 πapà σeavтy, with thyself, in the sense of being in the Father's immediate presence.

8 John xvii. 5.

4 John xvi. 28.

5 ap' éavтoû, of himself; that is, of his own proper will, separated from the Father's will. The words imply perfect knowledge of the Father's will, and perfect union with it.

John v. 19, 20.

7 John viii. 26.

« PreviousContinue »